Tag Archives: Russian sayings
4 Russian Sayings With Animals Posted by Maria on May 6, 2019
Russian has quite a few sayings featuring animals—you can see our previous post on this subject here. This time, I wanted to add four more expressions you can occasionally hear in Russian speech. Кот напла́кал Кот is a male cat (the female form, ко‘шка is more common to talk about a random street cat whose sex…
As Good As Dead: Macabre Russian Sayings Posted by Maria on Apr 17, 2018
Russian has its share of gallows humor, so I have put together a list of sayings having to do with the dead. Горбатого могила исправит Горб is a hump, so горбатый is a hunchback (not a very nice way to describe someone). Могила is a grave, and исправить is to correct or fix. So, this…
Easy Does It: Sayings With Лёгкий Posted by Maria on Dec 1, 2016
Лёгкий means “easy” or “light” (weight-wise). Apart from being a useful word in its own right, лёгкий appears in a number of common sayings. Pronunciation note: don’t worry about trying to enunciate the г. This word is pronounced as if it were spelled “лёхкий.” A useful homonym is лёгкие (lungs, singular лёгкое). Лёгок на помине…
Silver Linings: Five Idioms For Dealing With Shock And Disappointment Posted by Maria on Nov 14, 2016
The results of the presidential election in the US came as a surprise to both supporters and opponents of the President-Elect Trump. For situations like this, along with Brexit, which we covered on this blog, a few Russian idioms may come in handy. How and whether you will use them will depend on your outlook…
Caesars and Pushkins: Proper Names Used to Describe a Person Posted by Maria on May 29, 2014
You may be familiar with proper names being used generically for inanimate objects, such as aspirin. However, Russian often takes the name of a famous person to describe someone and to say they share some characteristic of that person. So what does it mean to be called a Pushkin? 1. Multitasker Julius Caesar (Юлий Цезарь)…
Comparative Degree in Russian Sayings Posted by Maria on Mar 24, 2014
Within the larger subject of degrees of comparison, I would like to concentrate on the smaller group of adjectives and adverbs that form their comparative form with the -ше suffix. As you remember, the more prevalent pattern for forming the comparative is the -ней/нее suffix, such as холодно – холоднее. However, a number of high-frequency…
Femme Fatale, Fried Rooster, and Frightened Monkey Posted by yelena on Dec 20, 2012
Do you know this just might be the last post on the Russian blog? I’m saying it because tomorrow is December 21st, 2012, роковая дата (fatal date) some people and Hollywood studios believe to be конец света (the end of the world). Whether you believe in this предсказание (prediction) or think it’s just россказни (tall…